


walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head

by radianceofthefuture



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Heatwaves, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-25 15:54:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14980508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radianceofthefuture/pseuds/radianceofthefuture
Summary: “Oh, don’t give me that look, E,” Grantaire sighed. “Even my sweat is sweating. Let me live.”There’s a heatwave, and a lack of air conditioning drives everyone outside.





	walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head

**Author's Note:**

> It’s too damn hot where I am, so y’all get this.

One would expect that, after two years of living through these late June heatwaves, Grantaire would have gotten bored of complaining about them. Trust Grantaire to defy expectation.

“We’ve got to get up at some point,” Combeferre said with an uncharacteristic lack of conviction. Even as he uttered the words, he made no move to rise from where he was sprawled across the grass.

“Do we really?” Jehan asked, lifting their dreadlocks to wipe the sweat from the back of their neck. “Because I’m not sure I can stand up right now without just melting away. It seems like too much of an effort.”

“Everything is too much of an effort right now,” Grantaire chimed in. He was lying across a park bench, the arm thrown across his forehead vaguely reminiscent of a film noir leading lady on a fainting couch. “There’s an excess of Vitamin D about. The heat has nowhere to escape between the buildings, and we have to suffer for it. That’s the price of urban civilization.”

Enjolras snorted, turning his head where he lounged just next to the bench and squinting against the sun as he looked up at Grantaire. “I hardly think high temperatures and humidity are the worst thing plaguing this city, Grantaire.”

Grantaire yawned. “Oh, sure, there are worse horrors, in the long run. Corruption, gentrification, and so on and so forth. All unpleasant; all things I don’t want to think about when I’m lying in the park on a Saturday afternoon getting sunburnt. I can only complain about one thing at a time, Enjolras.”

He smiled, that insubordinate, crooked grin that made Enjolras’ stomach flip for reasons he was reluctant to examine too closely.

“Still,” Enjolras managed, “don’t you think it’s rather... irresponsible, in some way, to act like heat is this city’s worst problem?”

“I never said that,” Grantaire pointed out, smiling faintly. “That would be absurd. But the heat is easier to complain about. It’s frivolous, in a way. It doesn’t have that sense of insurmountability about it. For right now, I’m just going to act like it’s the only thing going wrong in the world. Sometimes that’s all you can do, right?”

Enjolras frowned.

“Oh, don’t give me that look, E,” Grantaire sighed. “Even my sweat is sweating. Let me live.”

“I just —“

“Can the two of you just drop it?” Courfeyrac interjected. “We’re all ready to collapse from this heatwave. No one wants to have to bear witness to this weird thing you guys have going on.”

Grantaire grinned at Courfeyrac. It was a different smile than the one he gave Enjolras, bright and brief, with none of that wry tenderness. Grantaire never seemed to give anyone else the same smile he gave to Enjolras, a detail that Enjolras was desperately trying not to read too much into.

Enjolras laid back on the grass, flipping his sunglasses back over his eyes to protect them from the blazing sun. Someday, he’d take a good, hard look at the storm of feeling that washed over him every time he interacted with Grantaire, but today, as sweat poured from his scalp and the sun burned freckles into his skin, was not that day.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from ”Summer in the City” by The Lovin’ Spoonful.
> 
> [I'm on Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/radiance-of-the-future)
> 
> Comments and kudos make me happy.


End file.
